


palpable and mute

by asterisms



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Prose Poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 06:06:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9806519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asterisms/pseuds/asterisms
Summary: He wakes in stages.





	

He wakes in stages.

The first to come back to him is gradient. A play of shadows and light flow before him, but they feel disconnected, like he’s watching them through a very far away tunnel or against the surface of a soap bubble, ready to burst. He thinks he could touch the shadows if he only reached out but last time he reached out he was cast aside and he doesn’t think he could stand to be lost that way again.

He has always been dark and he has always been cold and he has never not known pain. This doesn’t make it any easier when it comes to him again.

_But that’s wrong, isn’t it?_

If he tries, sometimes he remembers warmth that came without the sting of a belt and the wet of blood. He must have come from somewhere.

_Didn’t he?_

Color bleeds across his vision and he thinks he can see the echoes of people around and above him and he feels the sway of their footsteps ( _they shake him_ ) and the heavy weight of their words ( _he can almost hear them_ ) that are cast into shadow by the streetlamps that surround him (he thinks they’re streetlamps they could be anything because apparently that’s possible that something could be something else and no one else would know and _I thought you were my friend_ and _I thought you were different_ )

He closes his eyes.

 

He remembers the light.

He can still feel it burning beneath his skin (like his shadow like his _wicked_ like his _fear_ ) and he remembers thinking _I should have known_ and he remembers thinking _this is what she meant when she said the devil must be burned out of me_ and he thinks he deserves the pain and he thinks it will never end and he thinks _good_.

 

When the world is real again and his body is his body again, he presses his palms against the ground at his back and he feels nothing. He imagines what it would be like if the ground opened beneath him and swallowed him to its core. He thinks he might like that.

He remembers a different beast. One of flesh instead of packed mud and stone _but those are the same in the end, aren’t they_ and he thinks he would have gladly been swallowed whole if it means he could be warm again.

 

He thinks maybe he should stop believing when people tell him they want to help him.

 

He thinks maybe he doesn’t deserve their help and they must know it too but then the child asks _what is it about me_ _that is so unlovable_ and _why can I not warm myself?_

He is the child, isn’t he?

He is human, _isn’t he?_

 

 

Maybe not.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](http://asterismsinyoureyes.tumblr.com/)


End file.
